our adoption agency

journey to ethiopia

3/13/10 - received letter from agency for preliminary acceptance into ethiopian program

3/23/10 - mailed in most of the homestudy paperwork

4/13/10 - first home study interviews

4/16/10 - mailed in I600A form to USCIS

4/27/10 - second home study interviews

5/13/10 - completed required 10 hours of online Hague training

5/21/10 - receive first draft of our final home study

5/22/10 - first yard sale fundraiser (raised $1300!)

5/26/10 - mailed our dossier papers to Arise (minus home study)

5/28/10 - Arise Hague training

6/2/10 - picked up our home study & gave it to Arise as the last piece of our dossier

6/3/10 - mailed our home study to USCIS

6/11/10 - dossier mailed to Washington D.C.

6/16/10 - received our fingerprinting appointments from USCIS

6/17/10 - dossier mailed off to Ethiopia

6/22/10 - dossier arrived in Ethiopia!!

6/25/10 - notified that we received a $4000 matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans

7/28/10 - received approval letter from USCIS

9/28/10 - received our referral for Nathanel!!!

12/16/10 to 12/24/10 - first trip to Ethiopia for court

12/21/10 - passed court!! Greer is legally our SON!

2/2/11 - paperwork filed with the US Embassy in Addis

2/28/11 - heard we were APPROVED by Embassy

3/3/11 - received travel clearance for our Embassy appt. on 3/15

3/19/11 - HOME FOREVER!!!!!!

adventures in foster care

10/7/10 - return R & P to bio mom

8/27/10 - began overnight visits with R & P's bio mom

7/16/10 - 9 month mark with R & P

7/5/96 - R's 14th b-day!!

5/6/10 - began unsupervised visits with R & P's bio mom

5/6/10 - court date for R & P's parents

5/1/10 - P's 1st b-day!!

4/16/10 - 6 month mark with R & P

10/16/09 - Accepted placement of R (13 years) and P (5 months)

8/24/09 - Second placement call

8/7/09 - First placement call

7/7/09 - APPROVED!

6/16/09 - 2nd home visit & completed home study

6/11/09 - finished pre-service training classes

5/19/09 - 1st home visit & met our social worker

4/9/09 - began attending 9 week pre-service training classes

3/30/09 - change class plans

3/19/09 - turned all paperwork in

3/14/09 - CPR certifications renewed

3/12/09 - physicals completed

3/10/09 - paperwork completed!

3/3/09 - attended the foster/adopt info meeting

Friday, February 18, 2011

y'all are just the best. thanks for your encouraging words! i tend to find myself forgetting how close we are at this point and just being grateful for that, so thanks for your sweet reminding and for the reality check!! i think adoption can drive even sane people nuts {and let's be honest, i probably wasn't all that sane to start with :)}. exhibit A - a peek into my crazy brain the last week:

since i was just sure we'd get the call with our travel dates this week but haven't, i've been riding a crazy tidal wave of emotions. one second, i'm perfectly content in knowing that my boy is well taken care of and we are going to bring him home soon, and then the next second, i'm a crying, blubbering, moping mess. i would love to blame these bipolar tendencies on my pregnancy hormones, but i'm 99.9% sure that even if i wasn't pregnant, i'd still be this neurotic. if you're one of the lucky people who has fielded a tearful and whiny call from me this past week, thank you for listening. i pray that next week will be better, for my sake and yours :)

i don't think it helped that ryan was gone for a few days this past week and i've been left to my own devices. can i just tell you how many times i've googled blogs searching for the words "embassy appointment", "ethiopia", and "adoption"? A WHOLE LOT! sick, i know. in fact, i'm pretty sure that i've tallied at least a good 6 other families through such searches who were filed the same day as us with the embassy and now have tickets booked to bring their kids home. but, as my dear husband keeps reminding, what good is it to know that? we still don't have an embassy appointment so i just need to chill it out!

i even found myself no longer caring about my crazy preparation lists any more and have totally dropped the ball on getting anything else accomplished. i think secretly somewhere in my twisted/wanting-my-son-home-so-bad-that-i-could-puke brain, that i thought all my planning and hard work the past 2 weeks has cursed our chances of getting an embassy date. ridiculous i know, but i'm just being honest!

this is where i'm at y'all. it's a bizarre place to be but i know the Lord is still working things out. for my crazy sake and for the sake of our son. i'm trying to let go, but it's hard. surrendering control has never been easy for me...just ask ryan! this is where i step back and realize that i'm not nearly as far down the road of trusting the Lord and leaning not into my own understanding as i thought. i'm an imperfect mess struggling to trust God with the details of my life, and it's not pretty. although, once again even on the hardest days, i'm reminded of another way that God is using the precious gift of adoption to change me, grow my faith, and prepare me to be a better mommy to greer and charley. i'm a mess, but i'm thankful mess since this is just another reminder of how much i need a Savior!

i hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy some beautiful spring weather if you have it :)

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about moi

loved and redeemed by Jesus. married to the man of my dreams. momma of a son from Ethiopia {home march 19, 2011!} and a daughter {born may 21, 2011}. grad and fan of the university of kentucky. red sox fan. book nerd. passionate about orphan care. lover of all things pink. funfetti addicted.